Tribes Ascend Raider Guide

Tribes Ascend Raider Guide by Zkeleton

This guide is directed to people who just started their journey in T:A and want to know more about Raider class before they spend their coin.

First of all check this site for some basic technical info http://tribes.wikia.com/wiki/Raider

R A I D E R aka scrambler

Armor Type Medium
Health 1200 (1300)
Energy 100 (110)

Gold cost 280
EXP cost 18000

Recommended Perks.

Safety Third > Extra grenade + increased radius of explosion. Great all around for wipes in gene room/flag assets.
Potential Energy [PE] > This perk is just awesome. It gives you 70-100 when you are hit with AOE damage.
TIP> Use enemy Base Turrets to fill your energy bar. Get in range of Base Turret and let it hit you once so it can fill your energy bar then turn on jammer pack and do your thing.
Looter > Extra ammo from ammo drops; when Mastered, it also provides one additional Belt item from the ammo drops.
Survivalist > Have not used it yet and why? Cuz PE is better. But often when you clear rooms there is like 2-5 ammo drops laying around. Might be good.
Egocentric > Reduced self damage. When Mastered, makes you immune to your own secondary grenade effects (White Out, EMP, etc). Guess what, you still take damage from your EMP and Whiteout gives you little knockback and noise effect. Testing it at the moment but I don’t like it as much as PE.
Ultra Capacitor I/II > Pure and simple Extra 20 energy is always decent choice, tho I still like PE more.

Recommended Setup.
Safety Third / Potential Energy / Arx Buster / Jammer Pack / EMP Grenade > All around good setup for defense, offense. Swap Arx Buster for Grenade Launcher if you like it more and you know that you will be spamming those nades indoors most of the time.

Bying route. What should I get first?
Jammer Pack > EMP Grenade Upgrade 1 > ARX Buster Upgrade 1-2 > Armor Upgrade 1 > NJ4 SMG Upgrade 1-4 > Potential Energy Perk Upgrade 1-2 > And then whatever you think is best for you. This way you can do your job asap.

Roles. So where does Raider shines the most?
Offense > destroying flag asset and generator, harassing
Defense > defending gen room, flag defense, mid harass, semi flag chaser

Equipment.

Weapons
Arx Buster
Pros:
-Great with destroying turrets, gene, harassing, killing non moving targets (heavy hostiles)
Cons:
-Its takes some practice to use it in indoors and sometimes grenades stick in places where you don’t want it.
-Its way harder (at least for me) to use it outdoors then let’s say spinfusor , tho it can be done and with some practice its effective.

Grenade Launcher
Pros:
-Bigger clip size.
-Somehow easier to use indoors to spam around corners.
-Good for harassing flag defense from range. Similar to Jug`s Fusion Mortar but less effective. Still its annoying cuz you can spam bunch of those nades and people will notice you.
Cons
-Harder to use overall outdoors. I bought it but now im not even using it.

NJ4 SMG
I don’t care if you like it or not. This is your Primary weapon. You can say that “meh I don’t like bullets and stuff” go play spinfusor or thumper then. This is reliable, it does damage and its easier to hit targets in mid air then using any of Primary. I see no shame of using it all day long.
This weapon is great for chasing. Great for putting pressure in semi close range against heavy and targets that are in straight line.
TIP> Go to practice mode and use it on moving dummies so that you will know how to use it in on mid air targets going up/down ect.

Jammer Pack
This is what makes Raider exceptional.
„Activating it shrouds you and any allies within the range in a white glow and disables the markers over your head(s) making it impossible for the enemy to identify your class and sometimes causing confusion since most people are so used to identifying players by their markers. You also cannot be spotted. The jammer will scramble any enemy infiltrator’s stealth. Perhaps most importantly, you and friendlies under the effect of the jammer are un-targetable by enemy turrets which lets you take them out with impunity.”

How and when to use it?
1. You want to get in enemy base unnoticed. Get some speed and while your ski save some energy and just before you enter certain zone turn it on.
2. Get around enemy base. Turn it on and lay destruction on enemy base asset.
3. Dommbringer is trying to lock on you. Press C.
4. You know that there might be INF somewhere near. Press C.
5. There is some huge fight in mid. Get in range and press C. It will cover your allies and make it harder for enemy to hit them.
6. Your in middle of a “duel” and your not going to well. Try to hide behind something and press C. Red indicator will disappear . Consider this, better players know u can do that, and they know where you are. Still can save your skin.
There is a lot more ways to use it. In future I might make some video tutorial.

Belt Items
EMP Grenade.
-does 1100 aoe damage and drains enemy energy
-does 2400 (?) damage to generator
-combine that with Safety Third perk and you will have 3 of these babies with increased radius
TIP> Go to practice mode and use it on moving dummies so that you will know how to use it in on mid air targets going up/down ect.
TIP#2> Good usage of EMP is essential. If you have 3 of those you will OBLITERATE group of enemies stacked at one spoot in blink of an eye. Also mind that HEAVY got very little of energy, draining it prevents them from flying up and making good usage of spinfusor

WhiteOut Grenade. Im still playing around with it, trying to find some decent use for it. No luck yet.
-it gives knockback, blinds (white, blinding screen and then when they come out of it, they cant see markers)
-it does max 50 damage, combined with Egocentric you can run into room of enemies and spam those while wrecking havoc (didn’t find that tactic useful yet tho)
-I still would go with EMP Grenade over this. Why? Cuz EMP does DMG, it helps you destroy not only disable targets. Save your 42k xp for something else. Overall I don’t recommend it.

Tactics.

Defending your Gene room> You goal is to defend gene room and all the near area.
–YOU DO NOT CAMP IN GENE ROOM ALL DAY LONG
-If your not watching your flag, you are no use to the team as Raider.
-You should be standing in place where you can see entrance to your Gene room, and still having chance to use your SMG when enemy capper grabs the flag.
-Use your ALT button, combined with ZOOM to warn your team of incoming, potential cappers, disruptors and so on. More often people will react to that and take action.
-So many times I see INF`s doing same route to my Gen room, they ski, in straight line and then turn on stealth hoping it would help them. Guess what happens next when im there hidden with my Jammer Pack.
-Use your Jammer and hide, in not obvious place but maintain good visibility of Gen room entrance, your flag and possibly mid routes to your flag/gene room.

Mid harass> Your goal is to kill/wound/break speed momentum of incoming hostiles and react to threats.
-Find a good spot where you can position yourself in a way that makes it easier for you to use your tools. For example standing in straight line against incoming Light User makes it almost 100% chance that you will kill them/make them suicide/lose their momentum
-Use Jammer Pack and hide behind something (hill, tree anything, but not something that is dark because you will be easier to spoot)
-Don’t be afraid to use your ARX/GL but for the most time make good usage of NJ4 SMG.
-Example how to react to threats. You see bunch of people going to your gene, but at the same time enemy capper grabs the flag. Your in a decent position to chase – do it! Still when you know you will not be able to catch that b****** PTH in effective way with your NJ4 SMG – dont bother – go defend your gen.

Additional Comments by Ananasi

An addition you may want to note on the jammer pack… If you are skiing to the enemy base and a Doombringer starts to lock onto you, a quick cycle of the jammer pack will break the lock on attempt. You don’t want to keep it on due to energy management, just a quick cycle. Once his lock is broken, the Sabre usually will target something else near you. If the lock comes back, another quick cycle will make the Doomie scream in frustration (like the Sabre isn’t frustrating enough already).

Also, the whiteout grenades do provide a boost when used with precision. With Egocentric level 3, you do not white yourself out. Having said that, I have not used whiteout jumping since the nerf a couple of patches ago. It’s really not that viable anymore, but it is possible and potentially worth a mention. The EMP also boosts you, but you take a significant amount of damage, even with Egocentric. Probably worth a mention.

I would definitely rethink Survivalist over Potential Energy. If you can camp the enemy base for a while (and it’s not hard to do so on some maps), you will run out of ammo for your explosive weapon. A maxxed out Survivalist also instantaneously adds energy and health, allowing you to live longer while spamming out insane amounts of grenades/stickies. I almost always run Safety Third/Survivalist.

Something with the new patch…the ARX now gives you airmail accolades, increasing your credits. For fun, sneak up on a spamming Juggie and stick him with 3 Arx grenades. Usually they jet up and away, so if they were damaged prior to your assault, you get sticky kill + air mail + the kill = 750(?) credits.

I would leave gen room defense to the Technicians. Their motion sensors and thumper effectively negate the Infiltrators without the need for the presence of a jammer pack. It was a different story before they nerfed Bella’s base size, the Raider was very helpful there in gen defense. Decent Sentinels will use drop jammers near the flag stand, so that should cover the Infiltrators there. Of course, in pubs, that may not happen all the time, but the Raiders’ time is better spent clearing flag stands for cappers and killing the enemy generator. They really excel at it. (This is all IMHO, of course). There are also more effective classes for mid field harassment, although this role, in and of itself, is fairly useless. I would never advocate a midfield medium class in any way or form. One does not TDM in the middle of a CTF map.